How Southwood

[DaiDreamer5]

If you can afford 300,000 for a house, you can afford to have someone landscape it too.

[poonther]

I still LOVE stucco...but that's just me. Brick reminds me too much of the Carolinas, but maybe because I've lived too long in South Florida. The historical district in Boca Raton (where I lived for many years) was either homes of stucco or wood. You never see brick in South Florida.

I think what you see in Southwood is North Florida for sure, but only part of what is South Florida. Stucco is more than just yankees bringing it down to South Florida, but I do agree that the very first homes in South Florida were wood. I think stucco took over because of termites problems with wood. Many historical buidlings in South Florida are stucco including the infamous Boca Raton Hotel.

I personally do not like the "two-tone" houses that are built of two different material like brick and siding. Nothing looks cheaper to me. It's like the owners are saying "we ran out of money so we could not afford to fully brick the house."

I know more about the history of Florida than the average Floridian and have lived in Central, South and North Florida.

[Florida]

There is probably no better building material than brick. If you use the right type of brick, it can outshine anything... stones are also very beautiful. I think bricks and stones work well together, so too does stone and polished wood... they go well together.

I laughed when I read the thing about the people running out of money and not being able to do the enitre house in brick... I absolutely agree!!! Its as if we're not supossed to notice the other three sides are made of something else. Funny stuff I tell ya... they can always finish the other walls at a later date.

[poonther]

Downtown has always been cool!

Are you anywhere near 417 Park... for some reason I picture that area as your location.

I agree that downtown has always been cool in our minds, but you should have heard some of the negative comments from people when I said we were buying a house downtown.

I love what they are doing w/417 Park. I rented a home just mere steps from there. My current neighborhood is on the other side of Tennessse Street from there in the Lafayette Park neighborhood which can either be considered downtown or midtown.

[Florida]

When I became a fan of Downtown, Mayor Maddox was in charge around here and one memory that lasts with me was despite how little activity was going on in the downtown at the time which wasn't much, it was squeeky clean... I mean, every downtown block had trimmed green grass even in the winter, every street clean of debris, and sidewalks too. This was the time of the street stamps and the modification of Adams Street into what we see now with the stamped red pavement look. Great days those were... I'm not sure what changed... but downtown isn't ask manicured as it used to be.

[DaiDreamer5]

There is probably no better building material than brick. If you use the right type of brick, it can outshine anything... stones are also very beautiful. I think bricks and stones work well together, so too does stone and polished wood... they go well together.

I laughed when I read the thing about the people running out of money and not being able to do the enitre house in brick... I absolutely agree!!! Its as if we're not supossed to notice the other three sides are made of something else. Funny stuff I tell ya... they can always finish the other walls at a later date.

If done right, having brick and wood siding in one house looks alright. However if you only do the front of your house all brick and do the rest of your house in wood siding, then it look cheap.

[Florida]

lol... agreed.

If you want to avoid "the cheap look" you've atleast got to brick 3 sides... else you might as well use the siding on all sides.

[jpl02]

I absolutely detest vinyl siding. I've seen places where homes built of nothing but vinyl siding sell for in excess of $300,000. If I'm paying that much, she'd better be a brick house.

I'm from South Florida so I've grown up with the stucco and Spanish tile roofs.....but I don't think we should neccesarily embrace that look up here. It's nice, but North Florida is different in a lot of aspects from South Florida, and we need to have our own look. When I say it's different, it's not bad at all.....but North Florida should have its own unique look.

After all, you don't see colonial-style plantation houses down in South Florida......it's not part of their culture and history.

[Florida]

Absolutely...

Although I do contend that we can in our own way blend the looks of the Spanish-Style that has been in use in Tallahassee for ages, look at the Los Robles area, with the Natural earth-tone look of our area.